[Talk-transit] Public transport time information in OSM

[Michael Tsang]

Dear Felix,

> As far as I have understood, the discussion of having time information in OSM has been going back and forth for years. And I'd also be a supporter of having this model included in OSM.
> But - another idea - what about storing public transport time information separately, but also with an open license? OSM is not just the core project, there are so many good solutions in the bigger OSM family (See the routing engines, JOSM, export tool,  openaerialmap.org, etc.. long list here). We could be a lot more flexible in a project dedicated to store time information based on OSM stops (osm_id would be the good identifier): I'm thinking about a (web) service, provide a database instance, with an easy  REST API to store and query data, probably some editors (web interface, JOSM plugin,...). We could query OSM public transport stops (by osm id), put them into the database and add/edit time information on it collaboratively, implement imports and exports (GTFS)  and different schedule data models. Of course I'm describing it very simply, but the basic idea is: Why fight to have it inside the OSM data model, if we could create a decent service around it?

I am also interested in making a public transport routing software for my town, and need a place to store those time information (including frequency-based metro routes and fixed time bus routes). I don't think that OSM can store these data and may develop a web interface for crowd-sourcing those in the future.

Michael